‘I’m 6 ft 3 - Here’s How I Stacked On Muscle’

You’ll often hear the mantra ‘eat, train, sleep, repeat’ floating around bodybuilding circles. This phrase is adopted by many fitness enthusiasts, like myself, to reinforce our focus. Personally, I have a ‘generalist’ approach to training, however, a large part of my training background was, and still is, hypertrophy (muscle enlargement) training. I’ve adopted the ‘eat, train, sleep, repeat’ lifestyle (with work somewhere in between) for about 12 years now and can honestly say it’s an interconnected formula that truly optimises training outcomes. So, let’s break it down.

I was wondering how much weight I've lifted between these two photos and after a few rough calculations it appears I've lifted the moon... Here's to earth in the next 10. #tenyearchallenge 👉🏼 2009 vs 2019 👉🏼 82kg vs 96kg #MathsWasNeverMyStrongPoint

Eat:

You’ve most likely heard “it’s 80 per cent nutrition” or something to that effect. This emphasises the importance of food. It’s imperative that we consume more calories than we burn with an adequate macronutrient (carbohydrates, fats and protein) balance to optimise muscle gain. Physiologically the body won’t add muscle mass while in a malnourished state. Therefore, it’s important to track our intake and amend accordingly. There are many tracking apps like, My Fitness Pal and My Net Diary that will provide greater insights to your intake.

Knowing what and how much to eat is a challenging task. There is no one-size-fits-all-diet, every individual is different and it’s best have these factors investigated by a qualified person (e.g. dietitian or nutritionist). They can calculate the calorie requirements and macronutrient balance needed to achieve your goal. Your requirements will be determined by a number of factors including age, weight, height, sex and activity levels. I believe that going straight to the experts for this personalised information is one of the best investments you can make to get on track to achieving your goals.

Once you have an understanding of your calorie and macronutrients requirements to achieve your goal, it’s time to implement a meal plan to match. My previous Men’s Health piece on ‘how to simplify and automate your meal prep to save time, money and effort’ will provide some insight into my approach. However, if that fails, there’s a number of meal prep companies that deliver to your door and have done the hard work cooking and counting macronutrients and calories for you.

Do you find meal prep overwhelming? Check out my latest article with @menshealthau 🏋🏼‍♂️ It will help you simplify and streamline your approach to meal prepping 🍽👉🏼 Link in bio 😁

Train:

Once your nutrition is under control and you’re adequately fuelling your body, it’s important to fine tune your training to stimulate muscle growth. Often, 8-12 rep range is cited for best hypertrophy training, 15+ reps for endurance and 1-6 reps for strength. However, in order to increase strength and muscle size, you must implement one of the fundamental training principles, progressive overload. This is defined by the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise training. This is often expressed as training volume (eg weight x reps x sets). For example, if your training program asks for 10 reps of a deadlift and your usual is 80kg, you would increase the weight slightly to 82.5kg the following session and execute the same rep and set range. By doing this, you have effectively increased the training volume.

By increasing the training stimulus as you progress through a training program the demand on the body increases and adaptations occur. However, like with diet, I’d advise that you consult with a personal trainer or strength and conditioning coach to maximise your results. Plateaus are inevitable so it’s important to track your training, listen to your body and strategically reduce the stress load to allow for adaptations to occur – an expert will help you navigate this while providing guidance, progressions, and technique assistance.

Getting a good quality and quantity of sleep is pivotal for health and wellbeing. Much about sleep is still unknown, however, we do know that it's a time when information processes and consolidates, tissues repair and management of hormonal activities occurs 😴 👉🏻 Here are my tips for supporting a good nights rest: ▪️EVALUATE YOUR ROOM - redesign you room strictly for sleeping. Eliminate distractions like technology, bright lights and/or pets. Sorry @internodie 🐶 ▪️ESTABLISH A ROUTINE: Have set bedtime and wake up time, even on weekends. Set an alarm for going to bed and waking you up. The bedtime alarm is a good reminder to put everything down and go to bed. This will help regulate your body clock. ▪️PRACTICE A RELAXING BEDTIME RITUAL: Meditation, deep breathing exercises, aromatherapy can reduce excitability, stress, anxiety helping transition you into sleep more effectively. ▪️EXERCISE DAILY: Exercise reduces stress and tires you out promoting better quality sleep. ▪️INVEST IN A GOOD BED - You'll spend around 1/3 of your life in it so it's worth investing in. @junosleep reached out to me to try their supercharged bed, made from clinically proven Celliant fabric that uses the bodies natural heat and converts it into infrared light to promote recovery. I've been sleeping in it for month now and I've had some really deep sleeps and noticed I've been having more vivid dreams. Juno are offering a $100 discount if you use my code 'CN21' at the junosleep.com.au checkout and they also have a 120 night risk free trail. ▪️DRINK HERBAL TEA'S: Be selective as some teas contain caffeine and have a diuretic effect. Tea's like camomile, valerian root, lavender, lemon balm and passionflower have been known to help with sleep. ▪️LIGHTING: Our circadian rhythms and melatonin production are influenced by light cues, therefore, seek out soft warm lighting and avoid bright or flashing lights before bed. ▪️AVOID CAFFEINE OR STIMULANTS AT LEAST 8-HOURS BEFORE SLEEP: It takes 6hours for the concentration of caffeine in the body to be reduced to half. Caffeine taken less than 6hrs before sleep has the equivalent loss of 1hour sleep.

Sleep:

Getting good quality and a high quantity of sleep is vital for the growth and recovery process. Much about sleep is still unknown, however, we do know that it’s a time when information processes and consolidates, tissues grow and repair, and the management of hormonal activity occurs.

You can also employ supplementary methods to speed up the recovery process and optimise muscle growth. These methods include, but are not limited to, nutrition, hydration, meditation, supplementation, hot/cold therapy, light mobilisation, massage, compression garments/therapy and foam rolling.

However, sleep is the most effective and inexpensive method of recovery and should be prioritised if you want to get the most out of your training and optimise muscle gains. I personally aim for 8 hours every night and implement the following practices before bed:

Have a set bedtime and wake up time

Meditation

Listen to audiobooks or podcasts

No caffeine or stimulants within 8 hours of sleep

Drink herbal non-stimulant teas

Reduce/eliminate use of technology

Reduce distractions and bright/blue lights

Repeat:

Establishing beneficial routines and habits are fundamental to our success. Routines and habits allow us to perform tasks and activities without much conscious effort. For example, having your gym gear next to you ready to go when you wake up in the morning or having your meal prep stockpiled and ready to take to work. These automatic mental and behavioural activities can be both advantageous and detrimental to our progression. Therefore, it’s important to be mindful of what they are and whether they are pushing us in our desired direction. Your ability to ‘repeat’ will be strengthened by having a meaningful goal, practising good time management, discipline, patience, consistency and rewarding your progress.

Each element of the ‘eat, train, sleep, repeat’ mantra is interconnected and extremely important for muscle development and performance progressions in general. Refining this process specifically to you and your goals takes time. Twelve years on and I’m still making changes. So be patient and consistent and trust in the ‘eat, train, sleep, repeat’ process.